title: Playing MMORPGs: connections between addiction and identifying with a character.
abstract: Addiction to online role-playing games is one of the most discussed aspects of recent cyberpsychology, mainly for its potentially negative impact on the social lives of young people. In our study, we focus on some aspects of youth and adolescent addiction to MMORPGs. We investigated connections between players and their game characters and examined if, and in what ways, player relationship to their character affected potential addiction. Players attitude to their characters seems to play a specific role, since players who tend to be addicted view their characters as being superior and more often wish to be like their characters in their real lives. Our research also confirmed that younger players are generally more prone to addiction.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. smahel@fss.muni.cz
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Smahel
authors.forename: Lukas
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Blinka
authors.forename: Ondrej
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Ledabyl
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D016739:Behavior, Addictive / Q000523:psychology; D002605:Character; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D012381:Role Playing; D012919:Social Behavior; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors; D018910:Video Games